Unblocking a cue (after cue copy)

[kgallen]

I copied a cue from earlier in my show (lets say Q16) to a later cue number as I wanted essentially the same lighting state again. Actually what I wanted was that state minus the FOH fixtures (as an on-stage preset) as one cue (lets say Q42), followed by that same state plus FOH for the next cue (Q43) [because it was the start of Act 2]

So I copied Q16 to Q42, then selected and set to 0 the FOH fixtures. I copied the same Q16 to Q43 for the "whole stage" state. I found that Q43 contained lots of "blocked" values, shown in white in the Output Window.

I didn't like this (I wanted Q43 to track from Q42), so I deleted Q43, copied Q42 to Q43 then went back to Q16 and wrote down all of the FOH values and then added them back in to Q43.

Clearly this is the wrong way to do this!

What would be the right way - or a better way? Did I miss something on the Copy window that would have tracked rather than blocked the pasted cue? The desk is in tracking on, and Smart Tag would have been on (as I never turned it off during a Record or Update).

Reading the manual now, I can see I can Unblock the whole playback, but could I have just unblocked Q43 so it tracked from Q42? Whilst I didn't knowingly have any blocked values in the rest of my show, I wasn't fully sure, so did not want to trigger an Unblock on the entire (master) playback.

Advice please! Thanks!

Kevin

[Edward Z88]

Hi Kevin,

1 hour ago, kgallen said:

I copied the same Q16 to Q43 for the "whole stage" state. I found that Q43 contained lots of "blocked" values, shown in white in the Output Window.

I didn't like this (I wanted Q43 to track from Q42), so I deleted Q43, copied Q42 to Q43 then went back to Q16 and wrote down all of the FOH values and then added them back in to Q43.

Clearly this is the wrong way to do this!

What would be the right way - or a better way? Did I miss something on the Copy window that would have tracked rather than blocked the pasted cue? The desk is in tracking on, and Smart Tag would have been on (as I never turned it off during a Record or Update).

If a cue includes recorded values for a fixture, these recorded values will always be pasted if the cue is copied. In your scenario, you therefore end up with cue 43 mostly being a block cue, as it is almost identical to cue 42. Most of the lights in cue 43 are told to do something they're already doing, hence they are displayed in white in the Output window. This is normal behaviour.

If you would like to unblock cue 43, go into the cue, make no changes at all, tap UPDATE, ensure SmartTag is enabled, and then tap the Master Playback's button. SmartTag will look at your cue, and rip out all blocked values, allowing the fixtures to instead track from the previous cue.

1 hour ago, kgallen said:

Reading the manual now, I can see I can Unblock the whole playback, but could I have just unblocked Q43 so it tracked from Q42? Whilst I didn't knowingly have any blocked values in the rest of my show, I wasn't fully sure, so did not want to trigger an Unblock on the entire (master) playback.

I have specifically added information on how SmartTag can be used to unblock cues here...

https://zero88.com/manuals/zeros/cues-playbacks/record-options/snapshot-smarttag#unblock

I hope this helps. If you have any questions let me know.

Edward

[kgallen]

Thanks Edward, that’s great! I didn’t think it was a bug, I just wasn’t sure how to fix the situation! 

Great! Cheers, Kevin

[Edward Z88]

24 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Thanks Edward, that’s great! I didn’t think it was a bug, I just wasn’t sure how to fix the situation! 

Great! Cheers, Kevin

No problem at all 👍

Edward

[SimonH]

If you'd had cue 42 live and added the foh and recorded cue 43 would that have worked?

[Edward Z88]

Hi @SimonH

29 minutes ago, SimonH said:

If you'd had cue 42 live and added the foh and recorded cue 43 would that have worked?

If you had SmartTag enabled, yes.

Edward